


Eye of the Beholder.

by Steph_Schell



Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Photographer, Art, F/M, Implied Sexual Content, Modeling, Nude Modeling, Nude Photos, Photography, Sensuality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-05
Updated: 2016-01-05
Packaged: 2018-05-11 21:47:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5643112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Steph_Schell/pseuds/Steph_Schell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"What's the difference between porn and art?" she asked.</p><p>"In my experience?  The filter."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Eye of the Beholder.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [romeokijai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/romeokijai/gifts).



> Inspired by this edit by Romeokijai  
> http://romeokijai.tumblr.com/post/136421792722

1.

"What's the difference between art and porn?" Nora asked.

"In my experience?" Connor cocked his head. "The filter."

Nora was so surprised she couldn't keep her bark of laughter inside. A few people in the gallery turned to them and Connor saluted them with his champagne. They smiled politely before going back to their conversations. "You're an artist. Aren't you supposed to have a better answer than that?"

Connor took her arm and led her out from their relatively secluded little corner. His manager liked him to mingle with the potential clients. "I am well aware of what I do," he replied. "And you should be too. Being my new muse and all. If I had kept these pictures normal instead of black and white, they'd be on the pages of Playboy instead of the walls of a New York art gallery."

"Are you always so classy when talking about your work?" she teased.

"I am classy at all times," Connor assured her. "It's just my brand of classy. It's not something everyone can deal with."

"Lucky for me, I can handle anything," Nora laughed. She nodded to a passing couple who remarked on her diamonds. They had been a gift from Connor to celebrate their latest showing.

"I've never thought otherwise," he agreed. "Have I mentioned how gorgeous you look in silver?"

"You might have once or twice," Nora purred. "But then you think I'm gorgeous every color."

He leaned over to whisper in her ear. "Incoming, two o'clock."

"First question is going to be how we met, I bet you," Nora told him before turning with a winning smile to the reporters.

"I'll take that action," Connor murmured. "Gentlemen," he greeted, with a winning smile of his own. "What could you possibly not know about us yet?"

"Why not tell us the real story of how you met?" one of them asked.

Nora hid her grin. She got to be on top tonight.

2.

The way they met is almost too tame to tell anyone of note. They usually keep it to themselves. OF course, it was always his girlfriends that he met casually. His boyfriends were the ones that made a splash in his world. He was being forced to work runway shows because promises weren't paying the bills anymore. It wasn't that Connor had anything against supermodels. They were perfectly nice people who were doing the same thing he was, trying to make rent in most legal way possible. But what he really wanted to do was create art.

Sadly he'd lost his muse and nothing seemed to bring it back. He'd put an ad in the paper but what were you supposed to say in those things? "Wanted: someone to bring inspiration back to my life"? So he snapped pictured of pretty women who tried to flirt with him for better angles and hoped someone would answer what he needed.

He found her in a coffee shop, just sitting next to the window and reading a newspaper. Connor brought her coffee as a peace offering. "Is this how you usually greet women?" she asked with a smile.

"Actually it's supposed to soften the blow of the very strange question I'm going to ask you," he explained.

"Okay," she said, wary but still interested. "Sit down and ask me."

Connor knew that going up to strange women and asking them to model for him was a risky proposition at best. If they didn't throw the coffee in his face, they were likely to call the police to report him as some creep. Thankfully he kept business cards with his manager's number on him at all times. One could never be too careful in New York. After repeated assurances that he wasn't a stalker but in fact a real photographer, they made a time to meet.

3.

Connor liked beautiful women as much as the next guys. He liked beautiful people actually. But that was in his private time. When it came down to work, he was all business. Nora came over to his work space and he took some warm up shots of her before asking the question he ventured to all his models. "Do you work nude?" He could tell by her reaction that she had never been asked the question before. "Stay here."

Connor disappeared into the back room and came back with a pair of garments which he tossed to Nora. "I'm not sure which is stranger, that you knew my size without asking me or that you have a bra and thong in my size."

"It's not like that," Connor said. "I'm not some pervert. I'm an artist. Some girls don't like being nude in front of a strange man. So this simulates nudity. You put those on, I take my shots and then I'll airbrush the fabric out where ever it shows up. And before you ask, that is the only photoshopping I do. I believe in capturing the real human spirit so every scar and stretchmark stays right where it is."

"You're a hell of a salesman," Nora smiled. "Something about human being beautiful and perfect being boring or something?"

"Something like that," he agreed. He snapped a picture of her holding the underwear.

"Stop that," she scolded. "Makes me look like a prude. Now where is the bathroom?" Connor pointed and set up his camera again as he waited for her to come out.

Most people had romantic ideas about a model stripping down for her photographer and them getting amorous. But Connor's mother had taught him exactly how to toe the line and he intended on following her advice to the letter. Work was work and you didn't flirt with someone you were trying to direct. So instead of teasing comments and suggestive glances, Connor directed her to where he wanted her and Nora posed accordingly. Strictly professional and all above the belt. When she done, she donned her clothes once more, Connor paid her and the two went their separate ways.

4.

He didn't hear from her until two months later. She was having some trouble making rent and wanted to know if he could use a model again. He was back to fashion shoots at the moment and just happened to be one model short for the line he was doing. Connor invited her to the shoot. He knew how hard it was to make rent in this city sometimes.

Nora did her job as professional as ever. Instead of leaving this time, she offered to take him out to lunch to repay him for finding her a job. Connor teased her about blowing her paycheck but Nora insisted. So they found a cheap café and sat down. "You seem nicer than a lot of people in this business," Nora told him. "The girls really seem to like you. You flirt with them or something?"

"I don't do that stuff," Connor said. "Not after my mother. She was real big on respect when I was growing up."

"Must have been. What was your life like before New York?"

Connor didn't usually open up so easily but there was something about this woman. So he told her all about growing up in a small town with an unwed teenage mother. It had been a rough childhood. Though he'd heard of worse. One of his exes, Jason, had been abused growing up. If nothing else, at least Emma Bennett had loved her son dearly. He sprinkled a few comments about his father but not many. The man hadn't really been around for reasons Connor was still unclear on. "What about you?" Connor asked. "No way you're a native here."

With a coy smile, Nora explained that she was from Texas originally. Apparently Connor's shock at her lack of an accent was a common reaction. She told him about her parents divorcing and helping raise her little sister in between beauty pageants. That last part didn't surprise him in the slightest. This was the kind of woman that was made to grace the pages of magazines for the rest of her life. The part about being army should have surprised him but it didn't. There was a strength in her that Connor could just sort of sense.

By the time they were done exchanging life stories, it had been several hours. Connor invited her to come by his work space next week for more photos.

5.

It was one of those relationships that just came about so easily, they didn't even realize they were in one until someone else pointed it out. It was natural for her to be his first call when he needed a model, natural for her to stay the night at his place even when they weren't working late, natural for them to just share everything with each other. It was all just so natural. So easy. When she learned he knew Spanish—he had a habit of talking to himself in Spanish which annoyed the hell out his last ex, Charlie—she answered him back in the same. From that point on they had an unspoken rule that they only spoke Spanish in the house. Or almost only.

"Where did you learn the language?" Nora asked as they walked through Spanish Harlem one clear day. They were listening to people chatter on as though the strolling couple had no idea what they were saying.

"Mexico," Connor told her. He spent the next the few blocks going on and on about how he had spent a year backing through the country after art school. He had fallen in love with the language and the food and the people. He had plans to move back there one day to live. "The photos I could take there," he sighed, pulling her close. "Oh I could make great art there."

"You make great art here," Nora told him.

"I have a great muse. Now go stand over there so get some good pictures."

6.

One day, when Nora was lounging on the window seat in only Connor's oversized sleep shirt, he asked her if it had been like this with her other boyfriends as he snapped pictures of her. He loved seeing her in his things. Particularly his bed. But his clothes were a close second.

"Sort of," she smiled. "In my last one anyway."

"Were you eight years older than him too?" Connor teased as he took a picture of her with her head on her knees. Only some of these would be going in the gallery. Most of them were just candid pictures for him to look at when he missed her.

"Actually I was the baby in that one."

"By how much?"

Nora leaned in close as though they were children sharing a big secret. "Eleven years," she whispered and giggled at his reaction. "I guess I have a thing for age gaps."

Connor snapped another photo. "He have a name? This man that taught you so much about yourself." He nearly choked when the words 'Miles Matheson' rolled off her tongue like a dirty little secret. She noticed and asked if he knew him. "I can never escape that name," he sighed. "Do you know he was almost my father? My mother was dating him when she had me." Which had made things so complicated with Charlie. It had all been fine until his mother found out he was dating a Matheson and spilled the beans. They just couldn't go on knowing they might be dating their cousin. Or worse, their sibling. "Could be responsible for his niece too."

Nora began actually posing as he kept taking pictures. "There's this new invention they've come up with called a paternity test. You could settle the question once and for all."

Connor knew that. It had been in the back of his mind for a very long time. But neither his mother nor Rachel Matheson had ever gone for one. Even after their secrets had come out. Nora asked why when they could know for certain. He had to think for a while on that one. "There's more wiggle room with maybe," he said. And she seemed to understand that.

7.

It wasn't always sweet and charming. They were real people with real problems. Connor assumed Nora's time in the army would be the hardest part to deal with. But she kept her PTSD well managed with therapy and the occasional medication. In fact, most days you could hardly tell she had any demons at all.

But there were always the little things that irked at each other. Connor used to think people weren't meant to live together because it was impossible to completely mesh your habits. Their fights weren't about little things though. It turned out what made them so attracted to each other was the same stuff that drove them a part.

Connor had been as spoiled as you could be by a single teenage mother and he liked to have things his way. His mother had found his creative whims charming. Nora found them irritating when they got in the way of plans. Connor hated plans in general.

Nora was usually the younger one in her relationships. It was hard for her to be the grownup sometimes. She was just as used to being coddled as Connor. In the romantic sense. They both had to learn that being adults meant compromise and understanding. Too bad it usually resulted in screaming matches.

Connor always had a camera in hand and Nora was started to get sick of her picture being taken. She wanted Connor to stop hiding behind his picture lens whenever they had an argument. She didn't even know what the pictures were being taken. It wasn't like he was using them. For the first time in months she slept somewhere other than Connor's apartment.

An invitation to a gallery opening came two weeks later. The show was to be called Honorable Light. She was honestly surprised when she showed up to find every single picture was of her. "I didn't want to put them out," Connor said as he came up behind her, "because I wanted to tell a story that was worthy of you. And your photo doesn't nearly do you justice."

Nora reached for his hand. "I have to say, I've never gotten such an apology from my boyfriend before."

"I like to match my apologies to the level of offense. And I did something very bad so I wanted to do something very good to make up for it."

"This is…the best thing anyone has ever done for me."

He kissed her shoulder. "I'm glad you like it. I love you, you know."

"I love you too," she murmured.

8.

Shem came back to his apartment that very night. And the next few galleries were filled with pictures of her. Sometimes with clothes on. Sometimes with certain things edited out. And each time, he bought her something to commemorate it.

Connor was setting up for a new shoot when she walked out in her robe. "Took you long enough to get ready," he sighed, checking his camera again. "You're just putting on a bra and g string, how long does that take?"

Nora stepped in front of the camera and dropped her robe. There was nothing on her. "I thought this would look better," she smiled. "After all, it's not like you haven't seen it all before. I mean, I didn't grow a third boob or anything."

Connor's jaw dropped. "Well now I'm thinking about you with a third boob and I can't possibly work like that."

Nora laughed. "I'm sure you'll find a way."

Connor snapped a dozen pictures before he gave her even one direction. She was so gorgeous when she was happy. And she looked so happy right now. "You make me want to paint you," he murmured.

"Do you paint?" Nora asked. "I've never seen you paint."

"My mother got me lessons when I was younger. I haven't touched an easel in years though."

"You can paint me, I won't mind."

Connor snickered. "You'd have to sit still for hours on end. It would be awful."

"You'd be staring at me the entire time. I'd like it."

He resolved to paint her from one of the photos he'd taken soon.

9.

"I've got a scoop for you," Nora said. The flashes were lighting up the room. It was nothing like when she and Connor were at the studio. And not just because she had more clothes on than usual. "We're expecting a baby."

The reaction was perfect. "She's right," Connor agreed with a smirk. "I'm going to be documenting it for another gala. Delights of Motherhood is my possible title but I'm still working on it."

"Working hard," Nora laughed.

The press finally wandered off and Connor pulled Nora into his arms. "You are not pregnant," he stated. "I watched you drink champagne all night."

"Well, we could find a nice, quiet corner and make it true."

He began to kiss her neck. "It would be so rude to lie to the press."


End file.
